Italian asset management group Azimut has launched a new private markets fund for professional investors to take stakes in alternative asset managers, Citywire can reveal.
The strategy is aiming to raise $500m in total, including €150m for a European vehicle registered in Luxembourg. There will be two other vehicles set up in the US and Cayman Islands.
The Azimut Global Private Markets Next Gen fund will be accessible to investors from a minimum investment of €125,000, Giorgio Medda (pictured), group co-CEO and global head of asset management said.
The fund will be acquiring minority stakes in the managers of private market strategies and their funds, gaining access to the underlying profitability from management fees as well as carried interest.
The strategy will look to write tickets between €20m and €25m for each manager and there will be a component of leverage, Medda said. He said they will aim to make between six to eight investments, which could rise to 10, depending on the opportunities.
US company
The fund launch comes just over two years after the firm set up a US-based company called Azimut Alternative Capital Partners (AACP) to invest in managers specialising in the private markets.
Led by Jeffry Brown, AACP has signed several deals including investments in HighPost Capital, run by David Moross and Mark Bezos; and credit manager Kennedy Lewis.
‘What we realised over the last two years where we invested significant money in acquiring minority stakes, is there is a terrific opportunity for individual investors as well, based on the possibility of magnifying the underlying results of these private market strategies, with the top up that comes from the profitability of general partners who manage these funds,’ Medda said.
The fund has been structured in such a way that it will also give investors the opportunity to gain exposure to a single manager within the vehicle if they want, like a co-investor.
Azimut’s private markets division currently has around €4.2bn in assets. It launched its first private market fund in 2019, which was a buyout strategy focused on Italian SMEs, with a minimum investment threshold of €5,000
Medda added: ‘Over the last five years, we have been working on getting our clients exposed or allocated to Europe-based private markets strategies. With this initiative we are bringing the diversification potential across the US and other global private market strategies.
‘We want to make sure clients have the most effective diversification and the ability to generate returns that are uncorrelated to underlying market conditions.’